June 21, 2006
iranian.com

PARIS -- Top security analyst Rear Admiral Chris Parry compares present threat to Western border breach that preceded collapse of Roman Empire.

Rear Admiral Chris Parry makes comparison to 'The mass population movements that could lead to the "Rome scenario," he asserts, referring to the collapse of the western Roman Empire in the 4th and 5th centuries when groups such as Ostrogoths Visigoths, Suevi, Huns and Vandals flooded its borders.

Western civilization faces a threat on par with the barbarian invasions that destroyed the Roman Empire in the 5th century, warns one of Britain's most senior military strategists. Immigrant groups from the Third World with little allegiance to their host countries could undermine Europe in a "reverse colonization," said Rear Admiral Chris Parry, according to the Times of London.

"Globalization makes assimilation seem redundant and old-fashioned ... [the process] acts as a sort of reverse colonization, where groups of people are self-contained, going back and forth between their countries, exploiting sophisticated networks and using instant communication on phones and the Internet," he said. Describing the threats as the new Goths and Vandals, Parry said that along with the migrations could come "barbary" pirates from northern African attacking yachts and beaches in the Mediterranean within 10 years. "At some time in the next 10 years it may not be safe to sail a yacht between Gibraltar and Malta," said the admiral, according to the Times.

Parry, head of the development, concepts and doctrine center at Britain's Ministry of Defense, delivered the warnings at a conference last week of senior officers and industry experts. He is responsible for identifying the greatest challenges facing national security policy in the future. Lawmakers in Britain have made ancient Rome a serious subject of discussion this year, the London paper noted, including a book and television series by parliamentary deputy Boris Johnson drawing parallels between the European Union and the Roman Empire.

Various regions of Europe, Parry said, are threatened by factors such as radical Islam, agricultural decline, booming youth populations, water shortages and rising sea levels. He believes that from 2012 to 2018 the current global power structure likely will crumble as a result of "irregular activity" such as terrorism, organized crime and "white companies" of mercenaries burgeoning in lawless areas. Meanwhile, nations such as China, India, Brazil and Iran will challenge America's sole superpower status, Parry said. The effects will be magnified as borders become more porous and some areas lose government control.

"When one thinks of 20,000 so-called jihadists currently fly-papered in Iraq, one shudders to think where they might go next," he said. The mass population movements could lead to the "Rome scenario," he asserts, referring to the collapse of the western Roman Empire in the 4th and 5th centuries when groups such as Ostrogoths, Visigoths, Suevi, Huns and Vandals flooded its borders. Rome eventually was taken over in 455 in an invasion from northern Africa by Geiseric the Lame, king of the Alans and Vandals. Parry estimates in Britain alone there already are 70 diasporas. Speaking with tongue-in-cheek, Parry said some of the consequences of this scenario would be beyond human imagination to address, including, "No wind on land and sea; third of population dies instantly; perpetual darkness; sores; Euphrates dries up 'to clear way for kings from the east'; earth's core opens."

A classic example of oversimplification of history, the conditions in modern day and age are not like Rome. The present ŒNorth Africans' or South Asians or the huge immigrant communities of Iranians in Los Angles are no vandals more than anything else they are only economic and political migrants. The resident populations with exception of few radicals are turning to western habits and education. Most probably when global prosperity lift all boats most of them will head back to their own country. Once freedom of expression in ensured we might even see a huge reversal of immigrants populace.

A study undertaken in Australia within Iranian community reached conclusions that three care themes supported by a number of universal and some diverse patterns are identified by Iranian immigrants as key themes. The three themes were: (1) Care meant family and kinship ties (hambastegie) as expressed in daily lifeways and interactions with family, friends, and community; (2) Care as expressed in carrying out traditional urban gender roles (role-zan-o-mard) (Azadie zan) as well as in fulfilling emerging new role responsibilities related to equality for female Iranian immigrants; and (3) Care as preservation of Iranian identity (inhamoni, hamonandi) as expressed in traditional cultural events and health care practices.

Now these are very sophisticated level of absorption of communities in to a global culture and no where predicts a scenario where these sophisticated people with thousands of years of culture will becomes cultureless Visigoths or bunch of vandals. It is this kind of wasted Œirrational intellectual exuberance' given a voice in leading dailies like the Times that rises alarm bells. It is completely confounding oversimplification of history and leaves one dumbstruck.

It is beyond me why analysts would want to use the frozen moments of history as a yard stick rather than understand that the dynamic mass of human society is going forward at a Godspeed... Andre Agassi, famous designer Bijan are anything but examples of great integration that has led to new talent being cultivated as a result of intercourse of east and west. Look at the Iranian example in US, in 2000, the top three occupation categories for the Iranian foreign born were management, professional and related occupations (51.8 percent); sales and office occupations (27.5 percent); and service occupations (9 percent).

By contrast, 28.4 percent of the total foreign-born population were in management, professional and related occupations; 20 percent in service occupations; and 19.9 percent in sales and office occupations. In 2000, the median income for Iranian-born males and females who were full-time, year-round workers was $52,333 and $36,422, respectively. These very urbane individuals and socialites are no vandals and no Visigoths. They combine the richness of their culture and style to the communities where they are embedded. Old civilisations appeared from banks of Tigris and within the heartland of present so-called vandal land, it was their culture and maths that gave birth to a rich renaissance.

Let's not doubt that values of that 5,000 year old culture will not be compromised by exclusive extremists' views. Rich cultures even if they create despots turn out people like Hammurabi who was not a vandal, we cannot judge people out of context and out of historical period they lived in. Ostrogoths, Visigoths, Suevi, Huns and Vandalswho invade western Roman civilisations represented the coarse Germanic culture which still was medieval in terms of humankind evolution.

Lets revisit the recent riots in Paris demonstrated fickleness of these resident populations to enforce their agenda, they are no vandals. Although, most of them are devout in their practices but speak French and Yorkshire dialect better than their native Arabic and Urdu. Geographical affinity and close cultural assimilation takes three to four generations but they are ultimate tools of homogeneity. Cricket today instead of traditional games is today very much part of south Asian consciousness. Football has taken a lot of aggression out of nations, nations fight their wars on the battlefield of football grounds, the near between nations is sorted out when first eleven is defeated in front of the whole world, that gives a lot of satisfaction to our innate aggression and helps resolve our venom and anger.

There was no such thing as pride of nations being shattered on global arenas in days of Rome actual decimation was the only course, recently when Paris lost to London in their quest of holding Olympics 2012; losing the bid was like a national calamity for France. In a similar vein the most important thing for these so called ' prospective vandals' today from North Africa and South Asia is to demonstrate their abilities in the field of football and cricket.

Zidane is one another example a boy from Algerian suburbs of Paris rising to become the celebrity of France. In present world cup Tunisia, Ghana, Ivory Cost, Iran, Angola and Saudia all are trying to partake from the global richness of unity in sports. Billions are watching as mankind plays its revulsion and belligerence on fields of sports, these are modern day arenas of gladiators the only difference being no blood is spilled no blood is sought , it is the pride of nation that is at stake, this is the highest form of competition and a great evolutionary leap for mankind. Give the poor Africans the opportunity they will give us the best sportsman in the world.

In days of vandals expression of aggression was only satisfied with slitting of throats. Let's not in name of terrorism generalise accusing an entire segment of humankind with lust of violence and blood thirst, this is the segment that has been great in poetry, art, romance and culture.

Present lands of so called prospective vandal gave to the world ALF LAYLA wa-LAYLA, "Thousand nights and one night" is the title of the most famous Arabian collection of fairy-tales and other stories. One often reads or hears nowadays "like a fairy-tale from the thousand-and-one nights", and, indeed, the fairy-tales are the most striking part of the collection. Like all Orientals the Arabs from the earliest times enjoyed imaginative stories; but since the intellectual horizon of the true Arabs in ancient times before the rise of Islam was rather narrow the material for these entertainments was borrowed mainly from elsewhere, from Persia and from India, as we gather from the accounts of the Prophet's competitor, the merchant al-Nadr.

In later times when Arab civilization had grown richer and more comprehensive the literary influence from other countries was, of course, much stronger. An attentive reader of the "Nights" will soon be astonished by the manifold variety of their contents: they resemble in a way an Oriental meadow with many different beautiful flowers intermingled with a few weeds.

On the other hand, the reader will notice that these stories comprise a very wide field: there are stories of King Solomon, of the kings of ancient Persia, of Alexander the Great, of the caliphs and the sultans on one side, and stories in which guns, coffee and tobacco are mentioned on the other side. The entire work is enclosed in a "frame-story", and this was known in Italy in the Middle Ages. Traces of it are to be found in a novel by Giovanni Sercambi (1347-1424) and in the story of Astolfo and Giocondo which is told in the 28th canto of Orlando Furioso by Ariosto (beginning of the 16th century); travellers who had been in the East may have brought this knowledge to IItaly. But the whole Alf Layla wa-Layla came to Europe in the 17th and 18th centuries. The French scholar and traveller Jean Antoine Galland (1646-1715) published it for the first time. How come lands with such traditions would end up becoming vandals that shall destroy the western civilisation? Those who have build shall not destroy it!

Today connectivity ensures that assimilations and similarities shall ultimately prevail whereas divisions disappear. The descendents of the sugar plantation based mass migrations today are sport celebrities like Jesse Owens and Tiger Wood; this is what mixing of humanity shall produce and not the likes of Attila the Huns or Genghis. Yet in our recent history the worst massacres and holocaust have been the exclusive prevue of land of Mozart and Beethoven, it was Nazis and Stalin who acted like vandals against a huge mass of civilised world.

Even the history of the vandals is the history of progress; the Germanic kings led Rome and the remnant of the empire to new level of sophistication. Magna Carte came as a result of vandals knowing the worthlessness of killings... All seven Barbarian groups, the Vandals, Ostrogoths, Visigoths, Franks, Burgundians, Anglo-Saxons and Lombards left their common Germanic homeland in Scandinavia around the 4th Century. Travelling different routes, they reached different destinations. Roman Europe collapsed and the great Emperors were replaced by Germanic Kings. Eventually the Germans were such great imitators of their Roman antecedents that it was Voltaire who declared that the Holy Roman Empire was neither "Holy nor Roman nor an Empire".